Advice on 4th yr electives at school with no home program

I attend a satellite campus of a large midwest school that unfortunately does not have an orthopedics program. We have rotations in orthopedics where we work with community attendings but I do not have a residency PD or chair who would be able to write me a letter of recommendation.

As things stand, I am scheduled to be a visiting student at 3 academic institutions but have opted to not rotate with my local community docs. Is this a bad idea? I will, of course, attempt to get letters of recommendation while on my aways and the chair of the general surgery dept at my home program is very supportive of me as well.

I am otherwise an 'average' candidate for orthopedics - low 240s step 1, low 250s step 2 ck, currently participating in surgery research that will hopefully be submitted for publication around interview time. Not AOA unfortunately. Honored most core clerkships.

Thanks for any advice!

Not sure how you are categorizing yourself as "average" with 240/250 and "honors in most core clerkships"? Nonetheless, if you have no ortho support then your plan seems very sound -

good luck --

wnl

Thank you for your response Dr. Levine. I categorized myself as average based on the orthopaedics step 1 average being 238 and climbing every year and seemingly everyone I know applying for the discipline having more than half of their clinical grades honored and papers where they are first authors. Perhaps I was too generous in calling myself average and am in fact a weaker candidate - I apologize for being presumptive.

Thank you again for your advice on my rotations!

Thank you for your response Dr. Levine. I categorized myself as average based on the orthopaedics step 1 average being 238 and climbing every year and seemingly everyone I know applying for the discipline having more than half of their clinical grades honored and papers where they are first authors. Perhaps I was too generous in calling myself average and am in fact a weaker candidate - I apologize for being presumptive.

Thank you again for your advice on my rotations!

i think he meant that you were an above average applicant...not below average. the 75th percentile for ortho residents who match is in the high 230's i believe, therefor a 240 is > 75% of all matched applicants